Brothers At Arms
by Chaotx94
Summary: A story of Two brothers at the heart of a bloody civil conflict in equestria. Can they both stand the tides of war?
1. Chapter 1

**Brothers At Arms**

By Chaotix94

**Chapter One:**

Thunder clapped in the sky above the desolate battlefield, Mangled and bloodied bodies of various ponies scattered the fields beyond the walls. Only two warriors stood, one of them was me, the unicorn known as Guardian Spirit. The other was my brother, the unicorn named, Deathly Spirit. We stood on this battlefield Once before as comrades. Alas the current situation had us standing under warring flags...

But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me explain the story of how we got to this point. You might want to get comfortable, it's quite a tale...

It was a regular morning in ponyville, a crisp cool breeze ran through your mane whilst the warm sun beat down on your coat. The perfect morning. I awoke in my room quite early to the sound of my brother downstairs returning from picking up the mail. I got up and grabbed the brush on my bedside cabinet with magic. I wandered over to the mirror and saw the same image I saw every morning, my long dark red mane that came down to just above my eyes, but as always defied gravity itself by floating in an arch above my face. My familiar dark grey coat and equally coloured and gravity defying tail. My horn was reaching trough a parting in my hair, its being unusually sharp made it almost impossible to bury with my mane, and he familiar shield cutie mark was there as ever.

I quickly brushed my mane, knowing that today was going to be quite busy. I headed out of my room and proceeded down the stairs to the kitchen, My brother stood there, with opposing mane and coat colours to mine, and with his trademark sword cutie mark. I spoke to him first "Morning sunshine" I said with a grunt, I never liked getting up early. "Well look who finally decided to get up! I thought id have to do the usual routine myself." "You know I'm not the earliest rising pony in Equestria, this is pretty standard issue with me."

"And don't I know it" he said to me looking over his shoulder with his usual dopey grin.

I looked over at the table and noticed a very familiar scroll on the table, with the royal seal. It was quite unusual for us to get letters from royalty, though being two of the most magically adept ponies of the time means we are asked for our opinion more often than we like. However recently it had become more frequent due to the escalation of an anti-Celestia rebel group known as the righteous legion, who have taken over a Manehattan and have been exposed to plotting to take over ponyville to gain access to Canterlot. Due to this ponyville has been fortified heavily, however, no hostilities have yet arisen.

I lifted up the the scroll with my magic and unravelled it, I then began reading aloud to my brother, "Dear Spirit brothers. Your usual daily duties have been changed as of today, Due to increased spottings of legion scouts near ponyville I am requesting that you both begin to fulfil roles in aiding with the towns defence. Meet up with the rest of the defence group in town as soon as you are available. Faithfully, Celestia"

Deathly stopped what he was doing and looked at me, I passed him the letter and he skimmed over it quickly. He then put the letter down and took a deep breath, then after a few moments he looked up at me. "I guess we should get going now then?"

"Nothing else to do is there?" I said with an awkward grin "we both knew the time would come eventually" and with that we both grabbed out cloaks from the rack by the door and wandered out. No words were spoken, we both knew that the time would come eventually. As we headed into town the sites become the same for every shop and home, ponies running about making sure that valuables were locked away, making sure plans were hatched for the darkest of situations, windows were boarded up and shutters sealed shut. Despite the weather, the walk down there was quite daunting. Neither of us knew what to expect from the day now... what we thought was just going to be a regular Wednesday was turning into quite the opposite.

We finally reached town, someone had set up a tent in the middle of the square, oddly enough it was covered in gemstones... Clearly rarity's work. We wandered over to it and walked inside, we were straight away greeted by Pinkie Pie. She was immediately in my face and had a slightly louder tone than usual... Even by her standards, "FINNALLY! Its about time you two got here" She was in some rather unusual gear, after being selected to handle long range ballistics she has worn a combat helmet everywhere she goes, and has always had a belt on; covered in grenades. In everyponies mind we thought Celestia was joking when she chose Pinkie for that job, but she seems to have handled it surprisingly well.

I then spoke to her in the cold calculating voice they have come to expect from magic advisers "Yes well, we only just received the letter and we came as fast as we could." We then proceeded to sit as the table with everypony else. Pinkie then bounced back into her place and the smile vanished entirely from her face.

Around the table was 8 ponies, each in charge of a certain area, Twilight sparkle was The tactical advisor, she stood with a strong stance and almost no emotion in here face, but today something else seemed to trouble her, she had been given a bright badge to wear as a sign of her position.

Beside her was Applejack who was in charge of both the ground forces and the food supply, she insisted that she take both of these roles so that she was ALWAYS busy, he had a green camouflage clock on with a dagger concealed at her hip. Even in war little about her had changed. Besides the facial scar she now had after a spell brushed her face on a scouting mission.

Then there was Rainbow Dash, personality wish she had been totally unchanged by the event of late, but she could be changed after becoming chief of the royal air corps, ahead of that the is the most reliable source of information in ponyville due to her incredible speed and knack for seeing the most important thing. She wears a rainbow coloured cloak and not much else besides a knife in the same place as Applejacks.

Rarity was amongst the ones at the table too. She had been entrusted with making sure that the town was properly fortified, she had a large green camouflage hat on and a well decorated cloak. During these times she had dropped her attention-to-detail in exchange for seeing weakness in the town, even in the strangest places. But she still had to look her best.

Fluttershy was almost totally unchanged by the war, only instead of caring for animals, she ran a hospital near her cottage for casualties of war. Then there was Pinkie, me and my brother.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

We all stood around the table quietly, Rainbow was the first to talk. "Some of the other scouts Have reported that there has been an increase in arms and armour production recently. More importantly though, while wandering around their laboratories I noticed that they were putting a lot of resources into increased magical abilities in unicorns." The group looked puzzled and then Twilight spoke. "What in Equestria for? Are they planning to imply lift the walls from the city? Or move ponyville itself? What if they intend to FLY Manehattan straight to Canterlot! Or TELEPORT IT THERE?"

I held up a hoof to stop her worried ranting. "I assure you that the sheer magical power it would take to float or teleport an entire city and its populace is beyond anyponies reach, Even with augmented magic, it simply could not be done. It is more likely that they are simply planning to use unicorns for a stronger long ranged offence to minimise their own losses." "That's a fair point. Applejack? Can you spare a contingent of unicorns to fortify the wall against magical barrages during the coming battle? Otherwise the wall may crumble easily and that will leave us in an extremely vulnerable position. "Applejack then placed a hoof to her chin for a moment, the then looked at twilight." Ah rekon I can spare them while we are being blasted from a range yes, but when the ground battle begins they'll have to be pulled back into the fight, ah cant be sparin' and forces from the main field."

Fluttershy then spoke, much to everyponies surprise. "I have some ponies who are volunteering to be infield medics, if you think you can find a place for them..."

"ah'm sure ah can find a good use for 'em sugarcube! Thanks for bringing it up, make sure to send 'em down to the barracks later on." Twilight smiled at Fluttershy why quietly smiled back. Then Twilight continued. "Now we have that sorted out. Rainbow, did you see anything else suspicious?"

"No, the only other thing worth mentioning is that they are planning to use huge amounts of long range weaponry against us. Oh yeah, they also apparently found a structural weakness in the walls."

"WHAT?" Rarity screamed almost blasting out of the ceiling. "What possible weakness could they have spotted? My wall is a feat of modern day design! It took me MONTHS to plan every detail and even longer to ensure that it was PERFECT!"

"Calm down would ya? From what I was told it seems that if a unicorn was to teleport a solid chunk out of the inside of the wall away that the entire structure is compromised."

"By Celestia... How did I miss that...? Ill need to get some emergence supports up along the walls. Thank you for the information Rainbow."

"It's what we do!" she said whole heartedly with a large grin on her face. Twilight chuckled to herself lightly then carried on "is there anything else anybody would like so say wile we are here? The princess has requested to see Myself, Guardian, Rainbow, and Applejack while the rest of you get things prepared." Deathly then directly adressed Applejack. "while you are in Canterlot, would you like me to give some of the higher ranking units some specialised training in area effect spells? I've mastered a few more recently that I think will be quite potent in the right hooves."

"Why if you could that would be might kind of you sugarcube! Each of the elite units has 2 Unicorns, 2 Pegasii and 5 earth ponies. Make sure thy are all working as a group!"

"I'll make sure they are fully prepared for the coming fight." He finished and then twilight closed the meeting.

We all sauntered out of the tent quietly, knowing that legion spies could be almost anywhere. After the group had dispersed me any my brother began to talk again. "What do you think Celestia wants to see you about?" He probed, with a quizzical expression across his face. "I'd like to know the same thing, the main thing that concerns me is that she hasn't asked for you as well."

"Yeah... that did seem a bit strange, Thought I'm sure she has her reasons. Let me know if I miss anything important. Oh and make sure to hurry back, I'm sure we will need your immense protection spells during the attack. Even more so if they are planning to make use of long range spells and explosives..."

"I'm sure we will be fine so log as we stick together though through this awful war"

"Well lets hope so, I'm off to help out the elite units, take care of yourself."

"You too." No other words were exchanged, nothing but a brotherly nod before parting ways.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three:**

By now it was high afternoon and the cold breeze was bringing in a low and thick fog... Hopefully rainbow would have it dealt with before it became a problem. I finished preparing myself for the train journey to Canterlot. Basic supplies in case of an emergency. As I departed my thoughts began to wander "I wonder why the princess only wanted to see certain ponies... no point musing on it for long though, I'll find out soon enough."

The route between my house and the station is a long one, through most of the town. As I walked through ponyville I saw a wing of Pegasii fly overhead, probably returning from a scouting flight, but as my eyes followed them and they disappeared behind Twilights house I saw that one of her upper windows was open. Something was up. Nopony opened their windows since the hostilities began.

I wandered over to the door quietly so as not to draw any attention to myself... It was unlocked. I slowly opened the door but just before I could walk in a small combat dagger just narrowly missed my face and dug into the wall by the door.

Bad... I cast a strong magical shield around myself and walked into the room as I did a masked Stallion stood beside twilight who had encased herself in a shield as well, Though she had cuts across some of her body and one across her face. The stallion had a large sword on his back in a holster and a shield on his front right leg, other than that he was dressed in a black suit for stealth. As he spotted me he lifter his right hoof and swished it in the air, launching several daggers towards me. They would normally have bounced off of a magical barrier, but because my defensive spells are more... "potent" they totally de materialised almost upon impact.

This seemed to aggravate the assassin as he drew his blade with the handle in his mouth and began to strike twilights shield, causing it to fluctuate with weakness. This pony clearly had training in dealing with combat magic. I stepped forward a few times and launched several magical crescent shaped blades at him, he blocked most of them with his shield but one of them clipped his flank. That got his attention. He leaped down to the same level as me and casually trotted up to my shield. Our eyes met for a few brief seconds, then he simply muttered "coward" while staring at me. With clear intent to provoke, I let down my shield and summoned a cylindrical disk, glowing green and scolding hot around the edges, but still as hard as diamond. With this I sent it flying towards him like a Frisbee, he blocked it and it his his shield with a loud metallic clang, he then pushed it back and came galloping towards me.

As he did I leapt into the air and landed on the wall, manipulating gravity around me with magic, as I did all the books near me slid as far back as they could and hit the back wall with a thud, just as I looked at him he leapt into the air with his blade stretched out in front, I used my magical disk to block his stab but as he recoiled he came around for another swing I blocked it quickly, he repeated this several times, each time a loud metal clan would be heard along with sparks from his blade. He was an earth pony, but he was floating, he had positioned himself perfectly between real gravity and my own, achieving levitation.

After 9 or ten bounces I waited for him to strike and as he did pushed with my disk to recoil him further, as he did I leapt forward and rammed my head into his chest and let of a magical blast with my horn, launching him into the back wall with a loud and audible SLAM. As I let of the blast I coiled back and flipped backwards before landing on my feet. The assassin rolled off of his back and onto his feel, picking up his blade once again. As he did I launched several tiny magical missiles at him, all swerving in different directions in the air, before all curving straight at him ad bursting into smoke around him, while this was happening I leapt towards him and as I flew at him through the smoke his blade and my horn collided we both pulled back and swung again, and again and again. After a fair few more hits I swung my horn with a magical blade around it, as it came into contact with his, his shattered into unusable pieces, and as it happened a I brought myself back and drove my blade clean into his chest. "legion scum" I uttered in disgust as I drew the blade out and the corpse flopped onto the floor. I then hurried up the stairs and saw twilight passed out on the floor.

I wandered up to her and nudged her, "Twilight? Its over. Get up so we an get out of here" to this he stirred and her eyes opened "Oh thank Celestia that you came when you did. I'm not sure how much longer I would have lasted!"

"It's okay. Its what I do. You weren't badly injured were you?"

"no its nothing, just a few scratches. Damn legion assassin threatened me with death unless I told him every detail of our force here"

"Underestimated us both then I see?" I said with a chuckle. "Yeah, damn fool got what he had coming."

"Lets get the hay out of here, we can't afford these delays"

"Yes, I have what I need already" as she said that she placed a set of bags on her back "shall we?" she said gesturing towards the door.

"Yeah. We need to get the buck to Canterlot before more damn assassins show up for other pony's information." With that we both wandered down the stairs to the door and twilight closed it behind us.

As we arrived at the train station we saw that Rainbow dash and Applejack were already there rainbow flew clean towards us and stopped a few meters in front of us "ABOUT BUCKING TIME! Where have you two been? We've been worried sick!"

"i just had to deal with an assassin who tried to bleed twilight for information. So you may have to excuse our lateness"

"Yes I'm quite lucky that Guardian showed up when he did otherwise I may well have not made it." Applejack's jaw almost hit the floor. "Oh mah... good to see y'all got out of it safely"

"Yeah, I sent word to one of the townsfolk about the body, I doubt the legion will be pleased. He was quite skilled."

Rainbow dash then landed and started speaking again. "well lets got this show on the rail, we are late already!" as she finished we got onto our private carriage and the train stater moving. Something in my gut just didn't feel right. Bad times were ahead. Oh how right I was.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four:**

It was a long journey to canterlot from Ponyville. We had our own private cart too so it was quiet. I didn't really speak to anypony on the trip... I was too lost in thought, mainly about why Celestia only wanted to see me and not Deathly. We always seemed to be seen as a package deal, one without the other just didn't seem right. Maybe we were going to talk about defensive strategy? I didn't know... I suppose what put me on edge the most was that she didn't call us both this close to a fight, I'm sure she has her reasoning though.

I found myself going back through my past... one of the most clear memories was when we lost our mother. On that day we also gained our cutie marks.

It was a dark evening and we were walking through ponyville. Me, Deathly and our mother, Gliding Star. We had just been out visiting our fathers grave as we always do at the end of a month. (He died before we were born) But as we were coming close to home it began to get quite dark. As we were walking we passed two houses with a small alleyway between them. When we walked past it two hooded stallions came out of nowhere and grabbed our mother, and ran into the alley. Without even a thought I found myself on instinct making a shield ahead of them causing them to literally hit a wall.

This did not serve in anyponies favour, the slam into the wall knocked mum out cold. And it made the two stallions turned around looking very, very angry. As they turned I could get a glimpse of the criminals. One was a unicorn, white coat with a green mane, and the other was an earth pony with a full brown coat and mane.

When they had spotted that the only thing stopping them was two young colts the unicorn cast a simple explosion spell in our direction. I was still entirely in shock, and had no clue what I was doing. It was like someone else was controlling me. As the spell began to fire a great white barrier appeared between us and them and didn't even waver slightly as it was blasted at close range with explosions. Then the unicorn stopped and the earth pony stepped forward. He spoke in a very deep and raspy voice, as if almost growling. "I'll handle them, you get the mare..." as he finished a massive ball of energy slammed into the earth pony's chest sending him soaring down the alley into darkness, then another hit the unicorn, who wasn't quite as badly hit but slid back several meters from the force.

At this our mother got up and ran for the exit to the alley, as she got and we turned around... a large bolt of light came soaring past us... time slowed down, it was almost as if reality itself was shock at what was happening. The disgruntled unicorn had shot a spell at us to try and harm us... but he missed and it burrowed deep into the back of your mothers head... time stopped... so did she... all was still until blood began to trickle from under her man and down her back... time began to return as she collapsed on the floor in a bloodied heap.

Before I knew what was happening, there stood my brother glaring at the unicorn... a massive glow around his horn and his eyes glowed with a black and red power I had never seen... seconds later a massive red beam of energy came soaring out of my brother and time slowed again. As the beam flew two smaller black beams appeared and swirled around the outside of the larger beam till meeting at the end and soaring clean through the evil unicorn bastard that killed our mother burning his skin and boiling his blood, reducing him to ask in mere seconds...

We both stopped and caught our breath then ran over to our mother who was still breathing... barely. "uuuuuugggh..." she groaned as we came close to her... "did you get the bad guys?" deathly was shattered and breathing heavily with streams of tears running down his face so I spoke, "yeah mah... we got 'em... but we need to get you to the hospital your losing a lot of blood."

"its too late now... I've raised you.. now its time for you to go ahead and live your lives how I would have lived..."

"don't die mum, you cant die, you wont die..." tears started to form in my eyes "You cant tell yourselves this isn't real... and you must keep the power to feel. Your both stronger than you think, never lose faith in yourselves or each other and you will always be strong." I couldn't shelter the pain any longer and the tears began to run. "I love you both..." she whispered in her dying breath...

Amidst the madness we had failed to notice that our valiant efforts had granted out cutie marks... Mine was a shield, and deathly's was a sword.

I awoke from the painful memory to see that we were pulling into canterlot station. Now maybe I could finally get an answer to the question that has been burning me for the whole damn day... Why? That's all I needed. Why?

As we exited the station we saw that canterlot was preparing for the coming days the same way ponyville was, windows sealed shut and valuables sealed away with loved ones. Walking down the street was depressing, the colour that once filled the streets was all but gone, we had to have a guard escort. I could see twilight deep in though, spotting all the structural weaknesses and tactical battles that could be played out here. Probably just to keep her mind off things.

Rainbow dash was floating just a few meters above and looked totally black, as if all she was thinking was, "flap, breath in, flap, breathe out..." Applejack on the other hand was concerned very concerned. What about? I had no idea, but I didn't really see it necessary to find out.

Before we knew it we were at the palace gates and the guards gestured that we could go inside. As we did, each of us had our own little concerns and thoughts that needed to be answered. All in due time.


End file.
